


Wake, Little Lover

by prettypoetic



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 17:45:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16521728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettypoetic/pseuds/prettypoetic





	Wake, Little Lover

Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,   
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!   
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,   
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?  
— Emily Brontë; Cold In The Earth

The hardest promises, in Theo’s opinion, are the sincere ones. The ones you have to keep—/want/ to keep. The ones . . . that, when left broken and barren, beget more brokenness and barrenness inside you. Once, and many a time and oft, Theo had promised Liam all the protection possible. Now, with his knees soused well with the boy’s blood, the probity of that promise has been rendered void.

‘How do I save you now?’ he cried, and the foreign neediness in his voice, if he had not been so preoccupied, would have surprised him greatly. ‘I should have saved you.’

Liam reached up to touch his cheek, and Theo felt frozen in the rain—everywhere except on the little bit of skin beneath Liam’s welcome fingers. He was no fan of false hope, false believing. He knew this would be the last time he would feel this warmth; these familiar fingertips with their magic touch and their shafts of sunlight. This was the end, and Theo would be cold for the rest of his returning lonely life.

‘You already have,’ Liam said. Theo briefly wished he had chosen different words. Anything but those. They were going to stay with him forever, and eventually, when he would grow tired of guilt and grief, he’d start to toy with Liam’s words as he habitually did, and believe that the tragedy was justified—Liam’s death was justified. Perhaps, and furthermore, that all the times Theo successfully saved Liam would overshadow this one time he couldn’t. Gradually, the self-blame will dwindle and die, and the only feelings still left like embers in Theo would be distant longing and loss, maybe even some lasting love. His heart broke more for his future than it did for the unfolding misfortune of the present. Losing Liam did not sadden Theo as much as the thought of losing his feelings for and memories of him did, and it made his stomach feel unbearably unwell.

Many days had gone by now. (Was it already weeks, in fact? Theo stopped counting. For all he knew, it could have even been months. You can’t put a clock or calendar on dolour.) Theo was still the same. The boy who once felt one emotion at a time was feeling an overwhelming amount of them—and negatives ones, too. Would this ever stop? Would forgetting to love and mourn Liam be such a bad thing after all? Had Theo, without his full knowledge, died along with his lover?

He ran his fingertips over the curve of the tombstone. It was such a normal sensation now, that. Theo kneeled before it, and his knees once again felt as they did the night Liam died—cold, damp, weak, helpless. Everything was beginning to blur. It might have just been the tears, or the mist of fragments of memories of Liam running quickly across Theo’s eyes and leaving his vision disturbed. But he couldn’t touch anything, either, or feel it. There was a sensation of falling, and Theo fought for balance, but the world was not on his side. It was never on his side anymore, for it took from him the boy he loved so indescribably much. 

Then Theo awoke—gasping for air and still reaching for something to hold onto. His hand fell on some part of Liam, and Theo (as he perspired and panted) waited for that reassuring movement. He waited for Liam to breathe, and when he did, Theo could have sworn there was no relief ever felt so abundantly by him before. Liam was here, he was alive, and Theo never wanted to sleep again. In fact, he never wanted to blink again, unwilling to miss even a single second of this boy. Oh, the love Theo would show him when he woke! And oh, the love Theo would brazenly and bravely show him for the rest of their lives from the following morning, when Liam woke.


End file.
